Don't Look Back
by DeltaNuNuNu
Summary: Emmett and Elle thought that in just a few short months, they'd have everything. Little did they know... In just a few short months, everything can be taken away. Rated 'T' to be very safe, Elle Emmett. Enjoy. -
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do now own Legally Blonde: The Musical. I also am without a witty comment to put right here... So, on with the story then. **

**Don't Look Back: Prologue**

The shrill ring of the telephone had me sitting upright in seconds. I reached over, grabbing the receiver, completely awake.

"Hello?" I ask, my voice cracking a bit and I turn around in the darkness after feeling the other side of the bed shift.

"Mr. Forest?" A meek voice from the other side of the line asked. I assumed that it was Marta, she had an apologetic quality to her voice. Elle and I had grown to love her.

"Yes, is something wrong?"

I hear a sigh come from the tiny girl and she only gets a few words in, "He's gotten worse… I'm – "

"We'll be right there," I say, hanging the phone up and reaching for the lamp. It flashed on and I turned around to see Elle, pulling our jackets out of the closet. I blink a few times, looking around the hotel room that we've resided in for nearly two months now. It doesn't even look like a hotel room any more, though I did convince Elle that it probably wasn't a good idea to pick out a new couch that went better with the carpet.

My thoughts are broken as she tosses my jacket onto the bed. I stand up, pulling it on and watch Elle adjust her hair and pull it out of her jacket.

"Ready?" I ask her, picking up the phone again to call for a cab.

She sits beside me on the bed, leaning over and resting her head on my shoulder. "No."

I make the call and take her hand, leading her out of the room. She reluctantly follows me through the hallways and into the lobby, but as we approach the cab, she stops.

I turn around to face her and there are tears running down her face. The most heart-shattering word escapes her mouth in a quiet sob, "Why?"

I've asked myself this question far too many times to count. Pulling her into a tight embrace, I wave a hand at the cab driver who will wait for us. I kiss her on the top of the head, fighting off tears of my own and give her the worst answer you can receive for that question.

"I have no clue, Elle… I just don't know."

It kills me to see her like this... My bubbly, happy... still relatively new bride, Elle in a seemingly irreversible depression. She hasn't smiled, hasn't laughed… she hasn't been Elle since the baby was born, but then…

What can you do for a woman that was slowly losing her first child?

**I will definately write one more chapter, and it will be 1200 to 1500 words long. Keep in mind that this is just a prologue and is giving you the basics of what the story will be about. I have a feeling that you will love it. **

**Also, let me say that I'm thrilled to be apart of the LBtM FanFiction community. Snaps!**


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do now own Legally Blonde: The Musical**

We walked through the cold, sterile smelling hospital hallways, on our way to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the place where our heart is torn in more directions that we can count on a daily basis. Elle's hand hasn't left mine since we were in our room nearly half an hour ago. Her palm is sweaty, or maybe it's mine and we're both shaking. I think that we both know what we're going to see when we walk into the room.

We see Marta holding our tiny bundle in her arms, holding him close, tears pouring out of her eyes. We didn't make it in time, she tells us with her eyes as they meet them for just a brief moment. I start to feel dizzy, but have to push this aside, for Elle has dropped to her knees without making a sound. I know how she feels, exactly how she feels; as if I've just been shot through the heart, as if half of my life was suddenly taken away from me. Hell, half of my life had been taken away from me.

I kneel to the ground next to Elle, who isn't crying. I think that it is shock. I knew that there wasn't much I could do to make her feel better. Nothing that I could do, as hard as I try would ever fix this, I couldn't bring him back.

Once, the psychologist that we had gone in to see told us that perhaps knowing that our son's odds of surviving were slim to none could act as a cushion. That in the few months that they could give him with medication and machines, we could come to terms with it and move on with our lives faster. Obviously, this woman had never lost a child.

She doesn't know about the searing guilt that you carry around with you for not being able to do something about it, for having to sit around helpless while your child fights for his life, slowly losing the battle. She doesn't know about having never heard your baby cry. She doesn't know what it feels like to watch your wife melt away to nearly nothing in her own blame. She doesn't know that when you're with someone that you love more than life itself and you decide to have a child, another little person that you will love with an unexplainable feeling the first time you hear it's heartbeat over an ultrasound, that you will love just as much as that person… She doesn't know that when that chance is given to you, and then completely swept away from you in minutes there's no way to just move on with your life.

"Elle," I choked out, "We…" I was at a loss for words. I had no clue what I could tell her that could make her get up and face the harsh reality that we had just been settled with. "I love you, Elle."

She looked up, hot tears forming in her eyes and she reached up, brushing a tear off of my face. "I can't do this," she said, looking up at Marta who bowed her head over our baby in an apologetic way. "Emmett. I can't do this. I can't deal with it. I convinced myself that I could face it when… it happened, but I can't."

"You can do anything, Elle."

"Forests?" We both snapped our heads up and we were dangerously close to Marta and the vessel that used to be our son. She pointed towards a small room that we were able to spend a few moments with Hayden when he had a good day a few weeks back, sticking our hands through holes in his incubator and smiling at each other like we were a normal family, it seemed so far away now. "You can have a few minutes to… say goodbye, if you want."

I looked at Elle and thought for a moment that she was going to shake her head and decline, but she slowly nodded her head and I grabbed her arm with one hand and put my arm around the small of her back with the other, helping her stand up again.

We soon found ourselves in the tiny room on an uncomfortable leather couch with Hayden in a normal infant hospital crib that you'd put a full term baby in shortly after it was born. Neither one of us had the courage to walk over and pick him up yet. "Do you want to…" I asked Elle, not needing to complete the sentence for her to know exactly what I was talking about.

"No… You can though."

Closure, I told myself. I needed closure.

Slowly, I walked over to the crib and looked down. He still hadn't broken six pounds, but we could all ready tell that he was the most beautiful baby in the world. I picked him up for the first time, he still felt warm and it sent shivers down my spine. For all an outsider would know, he was simply sleeping.

I walked back over to the couch, leaving a space between Elle and me in case she was uncomfortable with this.

Now, normally, I'd say that you were crazy if you were talking to someone that you knew couldn't hear you, but for some reason, something inside me began talking.

"Hey, little man… You know, I'm kind of glad for you. You don't have tubes and machines all attached to you, and you're not in pain. We never wanted you to be in pain and we're sorry you had to suffer for as long as you did."

"Yeah," I turned to see Elle, wiping tears from her face and leaning over me, sniffling. "You were such a fighter though, and we're really glad we got to meet you," she then reached down and lifted the cap off of his head to reveal the wispy platinum blonde hair that he had acquired from her.

"I just wanted you to know," I started again, "that we love you so much and that we would have made really great parents. There won't be one day when we don't think of you. I wish that we could watch you grow up, be there for the first time you take a step, the first time you go to school, ace a test, and fall in love-" I stopped, handing him to Elle, thoughts were rushing through my head at an impossible rate.

"We would have been there for you through anything and everything," she said, cradling him and kissing him on the forehead. Then, with a bit of a squeak in her voice, Elle broke down into sobs, "It wasn't supposed to be this way, Hayden. We were supposed to take you home when you were two days old. You were supposed to be born three _days_ ago, not three months ago! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

With that, she held him close and doubled over, sobbing into the blankets that held our child that we would never again hold. That would never call us mommy or daddy, that would never wake us up late at night for a feeding, and that would never grow up to be the outstanding person Elle and I had talked about our children being.

I wrapped my arms around both of them, my broken family that would never be the same again.

**The real plot of this story is going to be Elle and Emmett facing many challenges with dealing with losing a child. I picked the name Hayden Eli Forest to honor a dear family friend of ours who lost one of her twins who was born at 27 weeks along. This story was inspired by the song Held by Natalie Grant, it is a moving and beautiful piece that will bring anyone to tears. **

**I hope this makes you think, like all good stories should, in my opinion. Tonight or right now, just take a moment to say a quick, silent prayer for all of the unfortunate men and women that are coping with having a premature baby in the hospital or someone who has lost a child and has to deal with all of the pain that comes with it. **

**Thank you, **

**Dee.**


End file.
